Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived

A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?

Update: seemingly not

Update: Oh yeah!

Monday, February 10, 2003

Shorter and more Postmodern Stephen den Beste

Europe has no existence besides its status as a figurative Other, forming the other half of a binary opposition to the USA. Nothing in the world truly exists except the prospect of war in Iraq, a phenomenon wholly defined by the policy of the USA, so any attempt at forming European consensus is mere deferance of the final choice. But even if the French are "with us", they are also, by essence "against us", so the final contradiction is never resolved.

Update Two more: a massive "I literally cannot understand why anyone might possibly object to the idea of a major war in the Middle East", and "People have more complicated views than simply for-us or against-us and it's Reuters' fault".

Update Rereading, I think I haven't done the long post justice. It's not just monumentally obtuse about the possible motivations of France and Germany. It's also actively barking. I believe (and certainly do not propose to check) that this marks the first description of France and Germany as "active cobelligerents" of Iraq and "our enemies". Also, SdB appears to have blurred the line between his suspicion that France and Germany have been secretly helping Saddam build weapons of mass destruction, and the real world. So I retract the summary above and substitute:

"The administration which couldn't produce a smoking gun in the case of Iraq is now going to produce one for France and Germany".1 comments this item posted by the management 2/10/2003 02:29:00 PM